Pinckney's Treaty
Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed on October 27, 1795, and established formal intentions of amity between the United States and Spain. Primarily, it defined the boundaries between the United States and the Spanish colonies and guaranteed the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River. Thomas Pinckney negotiated the treaty for the United States, and Don Manuel de Godoy represented Spain. Among other things, the treaty ended the first phase of the West Florida Controversy, a dispute between the two nations over the boundaries of the Spanish colony of West Florida.
Background to the Treaty
The Spanish acquired Florida and the southern coast along the Gulf of Mexico in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The boundary of Florida had been in dispute since the British had expanded the territory of the Florida colonies while it was in their possession. After the American Revolution, Spain claimed the British border at the day of the Treaty of Paris, while the United States insisted on honoring the old boundary.
The Spanish were not driven by a pressing desire to reopen trade routes to American merchants or to delineate a boundary line in the Florida territory. Rather, their growing fear of an alliance between the United States and the British—prompted by the signing of Jay's Treaty in 1794—spurred Spain to negotiate with the United States.
Terms of the Treaty
With the signing of the treaty in 1795, the border between the United States and the Spanish colonies of East and West Florida became what is now the line through the present-day states of Georgia and Florida, respectively, and the territory extended from the northern boundary of the Florida panhandle to the northern boundary of that portion of Louisiana East of the Mississippi.
The treaty also established a trade agreement that granted access to Louisiana's ports previously closed to Americans. New Orleans was reopened, and Americans could transfer goods without paying cargo fees (right of deposit) when transferring goods from one ship to another.
Effects of the Treaty
Unlike the contemporaneous Jay's Treaty, Pinckney's Treaty was quite popular with both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, as well as with the American public. Some historians argue that Pinckney's Treaty was critical for the emergence of American expansionism (what later became known as "Manifest Destiny"). Spanish power in the region began to weaken, and Spain slowly ceded more territory. Finally, in 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded an undefined portion of West Florida to France. When France then sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, disputes arose again between Spain and the United States regarding which parts of West Florida Spain had ceded to France. These disputes would, in turn, determine which parts of West Florida were now U.S. property versus Spanish territory and would greatly affect the Jeffersonian administration.